Nine European Airlines Plan Joint Web Site

The move by airline consortiums to challenge Expedia and other online travel marketers is spreading abroad. Nine European airlines have announced plans to launch an online travel agency late this year. Opodo (https://www.opodo.com), which is being compared to the U.S. airlines’ Orbitz, is expected to offer a range of travel products, including air tickets, hotels, car rentals and insurance.

Aer Lingus, Air France, Alitalia, British Airways, Finnair, Austrian Airlines, Iberia, KLM and Lufthansa are involved in the venture. Separate Web sites will be developed for each country, offering local travel products and multilingual, 24-hour customer service centers, said Nicolas de Santis, marketing director for Opodo. The agency is also promising to offer the lowest air fares in each market.

For Americans, De Santis said, Opodo will offer better information on the European market. But Henry H. Harteveldt, a senior analyst for Forrester Research, an Internet research company, wonders why Americans would bother to log on. “It won’t have any advantage over Travelocity or Expedia,” he said. “There’s nothing compelling for U.S. travelers.”

Meanwhile, Orbitz and Hotwire, both online travel marketers launched by U.S. airlines in the last year, said they plan to link their sites by mid-September. The move will allow consumers to scan Orbitz for listed air fares, then move immediately onto Hotwire to search for unpublished--and possibly lower--fares.